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Thursday, August 07, 2008

Finally, Some Good News...

The last few weeks have been difficult as I've had to deal with one thing after another that have kept me from starting my family history writing project. Personal and family problems, health problems, and most recently a diagnosis of cancer (lymphoma) for my canine BFF. The tall, dark, and handsome guy that I've had my arms wrapped around in my profile picture for the past couple of years won't be with us much longer. My heart is heavy and my eyes are almost constantly filled with tears these days. This hasn't been the best summer for me.

Like a good trooper, I've tried to push on with my project. The research I'd planned to do in July didn't get done so I'm still working to wrap that up. I'm not sure when I'll be ready to start writing, hopefully some time next week.

One of the items I had scheduled to do last month was to send out "shot-in-the-dark" letters looking for LIPA relatives (mostly people I thought might be my second cousins). I spent a lot of time on ZabaSearch looking for current addresses and finally got some letters in the mail on Tuesday. Yesterday I struck gold.

I got a phone call from one of the folks I'd mailed a letter to and it turns out he is my second cousin. :-) We had a long and wonderful conversation and he was able to share with me some of the family history I was unaware of. It turns out, he's got ooodles of photos to share with me too! That put a big grin on my face! :-D I tried to write down as much as I could while he was talking, but you know how that goes. I couldn't write fast enough to keep up with all the new information flowing my way. So we're going to get together one of these days to go over his photos and share more family history. Hopefully I'll be able to record our conversation on my iPod so I can relax, follow the conversation, and ask intelligent questions.

As exciting as it is to break through a brick wall and add another name to the family tree, I think it's even more exciting to find a new cousin to share kielbasa and pierogi with!